Seeing Is Not Always Believing

She tugged on his cottony beard, told him she wanted a doll, and mentioned she would leave treats for him and his red-nosed reindeer on Christmas Eve.

Then 6-year-old Heather Harsh gratefully took her red and white peppermint candy and hopped off his lap, never noticing that Santa Claus couldn't see.

The red-suited man sitting at Northampton Lions Club's tree lot at the Northampton Fire Station has never seen a Christmas tree, never spied a sprig of mistletoe, and never beheld the sight of holiday trimmings.

Being blind, however, hasn't kept Lions Club member and Newport News resident Rick Barry from donning a Santa suit for two years to greet children at the Christmas tree site.

``We got the suit last year without having anybody in particular in mind,'' said Lawrence ``Larry'' Tucker, president of the chapter. ``We had it at the lot, and he was there, and the suit was there, and somebody said `Rick, put it on.' He's been Santa ever since.''

Already Barry's spent several hours this season sitting and ho-hoing under the tree sale sign, hoisting one after another child onto his lap to whisper wish lists of horses and baby brothers.

``Anybody can do it,'' says the 42-year-old Norfolk native with a shrug. ``Whether you're sighted or have vision, it depends on the individual.''

Barry maintains a cavalier attitude about his handicap not only regarding his St. Nick duties but about his many other activities as well.

Despite his handicap - which he was afflicted with at three days old after an incubator fed him too much oxygen which destroyed his optic nerve - Barry stays busier than many people who have their vision.

In addition to volunteering for the Northampton Lions Club - which he was president of last year - Barry serves as president of the Peninsula Council for the Blind, president of Hampton Roads Blind Bowlers, vice chairman of Newport News Advisory Committee on Persons with Disabilities, and lector coordinator of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. The Hampton Roads chapter of the Jaycees, which Barry belonged to for several years, has inducted him as a life member.

``I'm just used to being active,'' he says. ``Being blind doesn't have anything to do about it. I never think about it.''

He picked up his positive outlook, he says, while studying at the Virginia School for the Blind and Deaf in Staunton, where he graduated from in 1969. There the teachers taught their students to become active, not passive, in the seeing world.

``You live in the community like anyone else, you need to be a part of the community,'' he says. ``You aren't going to succeed unless you go out there and take the first step forward.''

As president of the Lions club, Barry assumed the usual chores attendant with the job: making speeches, presiding over meetings and representing the chapter at regional meetings.

Unlike previous with club presidents, however, members had to help Barry get around by leading him by the elbow, giving him rides to meetings and telling him during dinner meetings where the food was on his plate.

Despite his handicap, at the end of his one-year tenure, Barry and his club claimed a string of awards: the exclusive 100 percent President's Award, an honor attained by fewer than 10 percent of club presidents; the club's State Achievement Award, given to about half of the clubs; and third place in the Governor's Contest, a district competition.

``He was a very conscientious, very dedicated,'' says Tucker. ``He had an outstanding year.''

Barry credits his successes to simply making the effort.

``I was never scared'' to try things, he says. ``I was never afraid of much because to me, everybody is the same.''

He equalizes himself by learning through other methods things other people would learn by sight.

By memorizing the bumps down Logan Place, the winding road to his townhouse complex, where he lives with his blind wife of 16 years, 43-year-old Linda, Barry can tell friends driving him home exactly where and when to turn.

By remembering the curves in the sidewalk, he guides himself to the Pentran bus top at Logan Place and Warwick Boulevard.

By using a special bar as a guide when he bowls at Fair Lanes Hidenwood bowling alley, Barry maintains an 83 average in his three bowling leagues.

Though he shares many friends in both the blind and seeing worlds, Barry, who develops film in the X-ray lab at Sentara Hampton General Hospital, says that many people still do not understand his condition.

``They talk to you like you are from Mars or something,'' he says. ``They think they have to holler at you because you can't see.''

But after he hears the giggling of children visiting Santa, he seems to forget for a moment such misunderstandings.